


Art for "Love Among the Ruins"

by art_by_daphneblithe, daphneblithe



Series: Tales from the Sisters Grimmer [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anna Akmatova's Poetry, Awkward First Times, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon Universe, Emotional Sex, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Picasso's Guernica, Playlist, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-War, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, Searingly Romantic Siberian Escapades, Sleeping Bucky, Tenderness, World War II, eerie romance, glamorous Southern lesbians, historically accurate psychiatric treatment, no characters die except Sarah Rogers and Hydra, non-con is only ch 11 & 12 and I make it easy to avoid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-10-14 06:47:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/art_by_daphneblithe/pseuds/art_by_daphneblithe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphneblithe/pseuds/daphneblithe
Summary: "I want you to sleep, James,” comes the man’s unexpected reply. “I want you to drift. I want to make your mind beautiful, in the way it used to be.”________________________________________Forced insulin coma was a real psychiatric therapy … and now Hydra aren’t the only ones using it. Historically accurate psychiatry in an eerie Sleeping Beauty fusion.Steve knows about the Chair. He doesn’t know about the Needle.





	1. Art for Chapter 1 to 8, 1926 to the present

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495) by [daphneblithe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphneblithe/pseuds/daphneblithe). 



> This art accompanies my fic [Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495), historically-accurate eerie Stucky -- psychiatric angst with happy ending. Sleep and strangeness, tenderness and love!

'

 

## ‘Steve’s under no illusions. He knows his ma fights every day with something he can’t see. It’s as if, when his father died in the War, his ma was forced into a War herself, a conscript to a lonely combat that nobody else can reach.’

\- Chapter 2, _Love Among the Ruins_

## ‘Steve leans over the book too. It’s true, the images are kinda weird. Most of the time Rackham just uses silhouette, so a viewer only sees postures. Some pictures show bodies straining towards each other, while others are whimsical figures, dancing in forests or marching. The featureless figures are eerie.’

\- Chapter 2, _Love Among the Ruins_

## “Bucky holds Steve against him, hands gentle on his body, and Steve is astonishing, new — a jewel, a pure thing. He’s in Steve’s arms and Steve’s in his. This is something perfect, against the dark.”

\- Chapter 3, 'Sleep, Love and Death'

## "They’re in a small, still place, together, in a world that doesn’t want them to be together at all."

\- Chapter 4, "Finding Home"

 

 

 

(‘To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub,  
for in that Hydra sleep what dreams may come?’  
(With apologies to Shakespeare) )  
\- art for Chapter 5, 'War's Cursed Wood'

## Steve murmurs, 'He’s my … friend,' and the syllable is freighted with grief and longing.

\- Chapter 6, "Ice"

 

## “He can hear ghosts in that wind, but none are the ghost he dreams of.”

-Chapter 8: "Red Thorns, Red Book"


	2. Longing and Sleep - artwork for Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to melt like wax under the hard heat of Steve's body. He wants to feel Steve move inside him, work inside him, his large hands strong on him. His own body arches back like the stem of a flower. He’s yielding. Supplicant.
> 
>  
> 
> When he wakes from that dream his face is wet.

 

 

> "He wants to melt like wax under the hard heat of Steve's body. He wants to feel Steve move inside him, work inside him, his large hands strong on him. His own body arches back like the stem of a flower. He’s yielding. Supplicant.
> 
> When he wakes from that dream his face is wet."
> 
>  

 

 

> "Then all his limited energy is snagged by the man sitting quietly by his bedside. He seems wholly unassuming. Tall-ish – maybe 5’9” – lanky, slender. Tumbled wavy brown hair. Pale skin, high cheekbones, unusually full lips. He’s not wearing a Hydra uniform but some kind of gray suit, and his voice is soft. 'I am sorry to wake you, James, but I think it’s time for us to talk.' "
> 
>  

 

> "Bucky glimpses weird grandeur, wide arched corridors with flaking, blue walls. The floors and ceilings are cracked and moldering. Electricity only works in parts of the site, and in some places the smell of damp and ash and ruin is so thick that it makes him choke."

> > Chapter 9, 'Poisoned Sleep'  
>  _Love Among the Ruins_
> 
>  

 


	3. Art for Chapter 10: 'The Landscape Bleeds'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is _not_ the Valkyrie, Steve. That is not what this is gonna be." Sam’s eyes are blazing, and Steve’s suddenly jolted back to awareness of Sam’s complete and utter refusal to take Steve’s shit.

## “There’s nothing here. They search for hours. It’s a place of ash, and silence, and sadness.”

## "Sam’s transfixed by the sheer surreality of the flames, vivid against the darkened snow. The fire is random and beautiful. He swallows. Riley would have liked it." 

(Some Sam/Riley joy in this one!)

Exploring industrial ruin and abandoned places in Chapter 10, [ _Love Among the Ruins_. This chapter is all about passion and yearning!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495)


	4. Russian water spirits and flooded ruins: art for Chapter 11 of Love Among the Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leander smiles, cold. "Insulin is not the only lullaby."

 

## “The project is called Rusalka.”  
  
Bucky shivers. He knows that word. Spirits of water who pull you under, drown you, who hate human warmth and want to make skin cold and wet and dead.  
  
His mind is growing bleary, dark with dirty water.

 

 

 

## “This room must have been beautiful once. Now, the walls are encrusted with green damp and trees outside are reflected in a pool of water on the floor. There’s nothing to do here but drown.”

 

**Art from Chapter 11, "Sculpture"**

**[Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495) **


	5. Haunted Bucky, and Roses Red & Black:  Art for Chapters 12 and 13 of Love Among the Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are shadows in his mind.
> 
> He can see things that happened before, out there ... in the icefields, in the white ruin.

**“The Soldier’s been walking a long time … He knows where they’re going. He knows the mission.**

**Something is strange, though. Something is wrong.”**

**“There are shadows in his mind.**

**He can see things that happened before, out there ... in the icefields, in the white ruin.”**

****“Steve leans close. He cannot not do this. He feels like a candle, like fire, desperate to rekindle.”** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Er, if you were maaaaybe waiting until Love Among the Ruins turned the angst corner into Soulful Clasping and Radiant Relief, it’s … here!! The cavalry arrive!!!! And look – I’ve painted two roses for it! WHAT CAN THAT POSSIBLY MEAN? :D. Chapter 12 and 13 of [Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495).
> 
> I’ve uploaded 2 versions, of Chapter 12, one darker and one lighter, to take account of different reader preferences and help people avoid triggers.
> 
> And Chapter 13 has RESCUE AND JOY :)


	6. Healing.  Art for Chapter 14 to 16: “Golden, ‘White Wolf’ and ‘Attempts’.

****

**A moment of wordless disbelief, then it’s _Steve_ , wrapping around him, his huge body full length against his own, his mouth against his hair. It can’t be true. It _is_ true. Steve’s real and warm, bright as flame. … “Steve.” If relief could be a sound, it would be that syllable breathed from Bucky’s pale lips into the warm air.**

****

* * *

* * *

**‘For a moment, Bucky’s eyes are mischievous. ”Always so impatient, Rogers.”**

**Helplessly charmed, Steve shrugs, his cheeks warming.**

 

* * *

* * *

## Searingly romantic clasping!

Chapters 14-16 of Love Among the Ruins


	7. NSFW artwork for final chapter (fic now complete! <3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW Artwork from the final chapter of Love Among the Ruins (now complete!)

# “They sleep wrapped close together, fierce, as if something is trying to pull them apart — ice, or thorns, or time.”

# “He runs his lips along Bucky’s jaw and remembers lamplight on his skin. Bucky moans, and Steve catches the sound in his mouth.”

# “Most of all, there is love to make, to have. Skin to stroke, to taste. He’ll drown the hundred years of thorns by shaking Bucky’s body into bliss a hundred times, a thousand times.”

* * *

[Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495/chapters/39777129) is now complete! Eerie romance and tenderness. 58k, explicit. Angst with a happy ending (and lots of happiness in between too). Mystery and tenderness.

**Author's Note:**

> This art accompanies my fic [Love Among the Ruins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929495), historically-accurate eerie Stucky -- psychiatric angst with happy ending. Sleep and strangeness, tenderness and love! 
> 
> 58k, explicit.
> 
> The fic is complete.
> 
> I'm new to all this, and I will be surprised and thrilled at any comment. I made a [Tumblr masterpost!](https://daphneblithe.tumblr.com/post/180970692354/love-among-the-ruins-daphneblithe-multifandom) and I lurk on [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/226286), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/daphneblithe) and [Dreamwidth](https://daphneblithe.dreamwidth.org/profile). Thanks very much for reading.)


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